


I Say a Little Prayer

by abyssobrotulaCronos



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief, M/M, Mentions of Sex, SPOILERS FOR ARR HW AND DRAGONSONG WAR, Trauma, character study (a little), he's basically alphinaud's dad, just threw a bunch of headcanons for my wol together, my wol is like... forty years old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 09:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20504804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssobrotulaCronos/pseuds/abyssobrotulaCronos
Summary: Tomorrow they will wake up, get dressed and attend to the gathering in the square. A thousand other things will happen and in the middle of it they’ll still find time to have dinner together in the brink of the night. They’ll spend months separated from each other, solely relying on letters and friends’ reports, but they’ll reunite in the end.Vebrandt Astana has serious emotional issues regarding his past and they have a saying in his future. He's also the warrior of light.





	I Say a Little Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> thanks everyone for reading! i've been INVESTED in this game and Aymeric stole my heart. that dinner scene in the dragonsong war arc...  
Vebrandt Astana is my warrior of light, he's a hrothgar with black fur and has a pretty chill personality. If you happen to know more Hrothgar!WoL fanfiction please send it to me!
> 
> also: there is a scene in which Alphinaud takes credit for something Alisaie said, but the WoL hasn't met her yet so he thinks it was him. hope you like it.
> 
> HEAVY SPOILERS FOR ARR, HW AND DRAGONSONG WAR!

* * *

It feels like a game ever since they first met in Camp Dragonhead. Aymeric has electric eyes, looks at Vebrandt through his black bangs and gives orders in a sultry tone, making everyone in the room feel less like being ordered around and more like helping a friend. Alphinaud claims to like him, so Vebrandt, who shares a trustful bond with the kid, decides on giving the knight a chance – though it is an optimistic way of saying he doesn’t growl during meets anymore.

By their third duty, they get used to each other’s personalities. Aymeric is cautious where Vebrandt feels the need to rush in strategies, the warrior frequently claiming Ishgard’s seclusion is the result of awful leadership and miscommunication. Aymeric doesn’t disagree, but knows saying it out loud could bind their future. And he was born into it, so he understands sacrifices had to be made along the way.

Vebrandt has lost many things in order to get where he is. Has Aymeric ever lost anything that couldn't be replaced?

(Yes, he has.)

The whole ordeal begins with crossed gazes, but only continues thanks to an unusual friendship: Tataru and Lucia. They agree it is about time they grow into the old men they are. Tataru hasn’t been with Vebrandt for much time, give or take a few months, but she has a good ear and sensibility to understand. She knows about his wife and his daughters and doesn’t give him a weird look when he needs to be alone.

She is, perhaps, the first friend he truly made ever since he arrived in Eorzea. Of course, later on Alphinaud squirmed into his heart along with the rest of the Scions, but Tataru… She is the toughest one. Makes Vebra wonder what she could have possibly gone through in life.

Her insistence for him to kiss Aymeric already almost makes him feel normal again, but this normalcy is known for coming in inconstant waves.

The first wave: the central highlands are cold and lifeless. There is no soil to plant and no lush to harvest – with very few exceptions – and it makes Vebrandt’s inner botanist writhe in agony. All work and no play…

Aymeric notices it quickly. He then requests Vebrandt to stay after they finish their strategy meeting with a very unusual proposal: playing cards. A bunch of old, beautiful cards with religious motif that Vebra doesn’t recognize. And he might not know the motifs, but playing cards is a pretty universal language.

They play. Sometimes he lets Aymeric win and remembers how his eldest daughter, Ohxa, used to do the same for him. She had always been unbeatable. He hopes somewhere she still is.

When they play, they talk. He learns Aymeric loves dhalmel gratin and would get a bellyache when he was a kid from eating too much. In turn, Vebrandt tells him about his weak spot for Rolanberry everything and promises one day he’ll cook something nice for them both. It’s all very safe. When it’s not, it still feels like it is.

Aymeric tells him about his father. He doesn’t reveal identities, but Vebrandt understands it affects him deeply. Like usual, Vebra then feels confident enough to tell him about his daughters and their mother. Later, he will joke about how he understands Hraesvelgr’s penchant for drama, but for now he speaks and Aymeric only listens.

He doesn’t look fazed when Vebra tells him he fell in love with an Au Ra which also happened to be some sort of literal saint on the run. They lived together for many years, hidden in a village near Vebrandt’s homeland and had two girls before she disappeared into the void. He still doesn’t know if she’s alive and trapped somewhere, but has decided to carry on with his life after countless failed tries of finding her (maybe she doesn’t want to be found, after all).

He doesn’t talk about his daughters, it’s still too vivid and too painful to remember. Aymeric doesn’t ask either, quickly lightening the mood with an anecdote.

One night after so many, he eyes the Hrothgar while tucking the deck back into its pouch and whispers:

“Would you like to follow me upstairs?”

One can’t say the time they wasted wasn’t entirely regained that night.

Aymeric tells him, in the sleepless morning, that he likes the feeling of the towers in the central lands. They’re so tall he feels like all the things happening downstairs are a million miles away and he’s just small, eyeing it from the mezzanine. Makes him feel continuity. Lying there with a beautiful man by his side, infatuated like he thought he’d never be again, Vebrandt sees no other option but to agree.

They don’t leave the tower that day, either.

Shortly after that, the wave bids him farewell. Nanamo is poisoned while Raubahn is imprisoned and barely survives. Vebra hasn’t seen Aymeric for weeks before that, but suddenly he appears with Haurcherfant in tow, both decided to give shelter to him and his small band. Even though he knows Aymeric’s place is just around the corner, the moment requires that he stays with Alphinaud, the boy trying his very best not to fall into depression – and failing.

During their retreat, he realizes how affectionate he really has become towards Alphinaud. In the past, still in the Waking Sands, the boy once called him “dad” for a laugh due to his doting nature; now he would seriously take the title. He and Tataru take turns cooking broth and making sure he eats it. They take him on walks, force smiles out of him with their gimmicks. One night, in their shared room, he lies down on Vebrandt’s bed and doesn’t let go of him until he cries all the tears he has.

From then on, Vebra vows to no one in particular he’ll never lose sight of Alphinaud. He did twice before in a past life and the names flash in his head as if they haven’t done so for the past ten years: Ohxa and Kuyo. He’ll be damned before he loses another child, it’s a promise.

When the boy is feeling good enough to bully Estinien into escorting him in fruit-gathering treks, Vebrandt lowers his name on his priority list. Of course, there are dragons and maybe Ysayle could use his help in the moment, but he gives himself a gap week and visits Aymeric in his manor for the first time after the Ul’dah fiasco.

It is much fancier than he imagined, though it has a suspicious lack of servants, and a cozy place in the top floor waits for them – it looks and smells like Aymeric. He doesn’t need the Elezen man to show him around because at the end of the day they have fucked on every existent surface of it, so Vebra considers himself an experienced guest.

A gap week turns into two. They don’t spend _all _their time having sex, of course. Aymeric takes him to the western lands and they gaze into nothingness while perched in their chocobos, they discuss strategies like the good partners in war they are and even play a round of cards before getting bored and falling into bed again. Or carpet. Or divan.

Even when they return to civilized society, they still rely on each other. They have long conversations and nightly escapades, Aymeric glimpses into Vebrandt’s mind like he has always been acquainted with it. When Estinien insists on casting revenge upon Nidhogg and deepening the gash on the ties between humans and dragons, his solace is the Borel manor. The trial wounds Vebra, he’s always been vehemently against defeating the mighty dragon. Maybe he sees too much of Kuyo in its eyes.

The second wave easy comes (and easy goes).

Aymeric feels the need to face his father and charge him for his crimes. Vebrandt isn’t surprised when the true nature of the man is revealed, instead he worries to death when he has to watch Aymeric disappear into the vault. He begins to feel like he’s the only one who sees how much of a bad idea absolutely everything is and that makes him feel paranoid.

Nevertheless, Aymeric vanishes in the other side and, in the side that remains, Vebrandt tries not to go insane or involve everyone else in it. What he still doesn’t understand is that his business is everyone’s business also, so it happens like this: Vebra leads the party as usual, with Haurcherfant in tow, wielding his sword and shield through the building. Alphinaud walks quietly in the middle because it’s “the ideal position for a healer”, but he won’t fight Vebra on it even though he finds unnecessary. The Hrothgar is distressed enough as it is.

Obliterating the vault’s soldiers is the easy part. Finding Aymeric beaten bloody and ragged is the hard one. Vebra ignores his weak protests and gathers him in his arms, warm tunic protecting him from the cold and from the stares. He faints briefly before waking up again.

Vebrandt sees his eyes, a shattering blue against the red and the white and the regret, and wishes he could erase everything. If he could rewind, he would do everything exactly like he did before, except for letting Aymeric go. If asked what he would change in his life, in their life, he would answer that going astray for too long had been his first and only mistake. Aymeric didn’t deserve his altruistic detachment.

A few weeks later, he changes the answer.

Alphinaud might have been blaming himself for everything that happened back in Rising Stones, but deep down, Vebrandt thinks it’s all his fault. Haurcherfant, Ysayle, Minfilia. All of them gone when it should have been him, because they’ve been telling themselves he’s too important to die – he should have been the sacrificed one, instead he leaves a trail of graves in his wake (just like Matoya said). He has no father to cry on his grave, no Scions to mourn him, no lover to…

What would Aymeric say? Do they even belong to each other? Would he cry at all? Most certainly not, he’s too tough for that. Vebra is tough too, but he cries so much it’s almost a tradition by now. He’s seen Thancred and Y’shtola on the waterworks too and it wasn’t a pretty sight – but that was them, wasn’t it? A bunch of heroes with no family, no home and a running mile of emotional issues.

Somewhere between Shiva’s defeat and Minfilia’s revelation, Vebrandt realizes just how incredibly lonely his heart is.

Alphinaud calls him in private at Matoya’s cave when they’re all sulking in their corners and says it’s time for him to rest. Always the sensible one, Vebra thinks. Minfilia isn’t returning any soon and the rest of the world still needs their help.

Vebrandt agrees, buy only when he makes sure everyone else is going to stay out of trouble. As he’s ready to leave for an unknown destiny, the Elezen kid calls him again, his voice low and full of mischief.

“I got a message from Aymeric. He wants to see you in private.”

Vebra doesn’t waste another minute.

They meet with each of their hearts amidst a bottleneck. Aymeric looks twitchy, Vebra has hidden eye bags under his fur. They make awkward, polite talk about their victories, but all of it comes with a sour taste. Aymeric paces around the huge table, hands tentatively resting on Vebra’s shoulders, their eyes in the same horizon line.

“Can I still ask for a kiss?” he asks and Vebra blinks before kissing him with a mightier will than he’s ever felt. They kiss until Aymeric faints from the effort on top of his injury and Vebra has to support him over his arm, gently carrying him towards the couch.

Aymeric laughs and Vebra feels a little younger, even though he’s in his forties and the other was just recovering from a stab in the guts. Not that Aymeric is a young lad either.

Later, when they’re resting on the huge bed in the Borel manor, he dares to speak his heart.

“One of these days I dreamed of a kobold. He was a tiny thing and dragged me and Alphinaud into a mine.” He begins, unsure of how sane he sounds, but Aymeric gazes at him like he’s the lord of a country. “His parents were killed. He kept screaming for them to wake up and Alphinaud was getting distressed, so we took him back to the surface, but then he was catatonic. He didn’t say a single word anymore, even though he was rather talkative before.”

It has been burned onto his eyelids.

“Alphinaud then told him something. He said that, in the future, when he felt this heart was about to burst, to let it burst."

Silence lingers between them and Aymeric pauses his caresses for a second until he resumes it, head shifting a little to look better into his dear's eyes.

“Is that how you feel now? Like your heart is about to burst?”

“Quite the opposite. It’s filled with love.”

Vebrandt knows he is far from being well, but tonight something tells him they have made noticeable progress. His head feels screwed in its place and Aymeric’s manor is warm, just like the man himself is, arms draped over Vebra’s gigantic pectoral like a blanket (but carefully on his side). Instead of looking at Aymeric on a bed and thinking of sex, he looks at him and sees a man he’s come to cherish more than anything, clad in his sleeping garments with a huge gauze patch on his belly. To think once there was the possibility he would not be here today…

Aymeric silences his thoughts with a kiss to his temple, hands under his shirt leaving their place and draping themselves over his belly.

“I hope this kobold found a reason to feel like himself again.” He speaks, dreamy.

“Yeah. Maybe, if the dream had continued, Alphinaud would have pestered his mind back into reality.”

Aymeric laughs with a weak smack to his shoulder, raspy giggles quickly muffled into Vebrandt’s chest when he turns around in order to carefully squish the man. It’s okay if they’re not in their prime anymore, that never stopped them from saving the world. Maybe he really is the child kobold, crying over two corpses until there’s nothing left and he becomes a shadow of who he once was – except he’s not afraid of changing.

Now he has someone to love and maybe a dozen friends counting on him. The realness of it all makes him think that, if he still was the old Vebrandt, it would chill him to his bones. The new Vebrandt might have a few scars on his face and a grieving list, but it gives him strength and will to fight.

Tomorrow they will wake up, get dressed and attend to the gathering in the square. A thousand other things will happen and in the middle of it they’ll still find time to have dinner together in the brink of the night. They’ll spend months separated from each other, solely relying on letters and friends’ reports, but they’ll reunite in the end.

In the midst of it all, they’ll have _two_ teenagers to raise.

Right now, though, they’ll laugh a little more while telling remarkable anecdotes of their adventures and proceed to fall asleep tucked into each other’s corners; dreams, for the first time in ages, made of seventh heavens.


End file.
